Toyota was named the top brand for the second year in a row in Consumer Reports annual Quality Survey. It's luxury brand partner, Lexus finished right behind Toyota for second place...also for the second year in a row.
The four lowest-scoring brands were all from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' Chrysler Group, as were five of the bottom seven. Fiat scored the lowest of the 28 brands and the Fiat 500L was named the least reliable among 265 models included in the survey.
Jake Fisher, director of automotive testing for Consumer Reports, said it seems Chrysler has been "picking less reliable partners" as times goes on, from Japan's Mitsubishi Motors Corp to German's Daimler AG to Italy's Fiat.
The biggest complaint about new cars and trucks is that infotainment systems do not work well.
Infotainment systems include safety features, as well as satellite radio and hands-free telephone and internet capabilities, usually displayed on video screens on dashboards.
Fisher said the complaints about infotainment systems are about how they perform after a driver understands them, not about them not being intuitive.
The biggest gain in this year's survey was by Ford Motor Co's luxury Lincoln brand, up 12 spots to 15th place. The biggest drop was recorded by Daimler AG's Mercedes-Benz because of a poor showing for its new CLA model.
Fisher said Toyota brands perform well because the automaker takes a deliberate approach to introducing new features while others that forge ahead with developing technology, power train and design features have the greatest chance to disappoint.
Ford performed miserably in the survey just a few years ago because of its "MyTouch" infotainment systems. But the complaint rate for the system is much improved in this year's survey, Fisher said.
Toyota
Motor Corp's namesake brand and its Lexus luxury brand finished
one-and-two for the second year in a row in Consumer Reports' annual
quality survey of the US new-vehicle market, the influential magazine
said on Monday.
The four lowest-scoring brands were all from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' Chrysler Group, as were five of the bottom seven. Fiat scored the lowest of the 28 brands and the Fiat 500L was named the least reliable among 265 models included in the survey.
The four lowest-scoring brands were all from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles' Chrysler Group, as were five of the bottom seven. Fiat scored the lowest of the 28 brands and the Fiat 500L was named the least reliable among 265 models included in the survey.
